Saturday, November 10, 2012

How Scammers turns your overconfidence into recklessness

Do you really know your strengths? Or are you overestimating them? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every one of us is overconfident about our own abilities. The problem is, the LESS we know, the MORE overconfident we are.

Psychologists have long loved the hobby of chess, as the "rating" of the player's ability is extremely accurate. Surveys have consistently shown that most players (75%!) overrate their own skills by average of 100 points. However, this statistic is more interesting when you consider the following: those on the high end of the scale are only overconfident by 50 points, whereas those who are on the low end of the scale are overconfident by 150 points.

Studies in other areas are a bit more difficult because few have ratings such as chess that are extremely accurate, but the general trend is the same: we are ALL overconfident, and the MORE skilled we become, the less overconfident we are. Conversely, the LESS skilled we are, the MORE overconfident we are.

That's why scammers LOVE newbies who don't know anything. Newbies are overconfident in their ability to do the right thing. Add some friends and family pleading, flash some checks, and you pretty much got them hooked.

All scammers have to do are

1) Convince the newbies this scam is VERY easy to get into by naming analogies that *seem* to make sense

Did you like what you read? Did you feel like you learned something by reading it? Do you think your friends and family members could use the knowledge? If so, please spread the word. Share the article on your favorite social network by using one of the share buttons. Together, we can make people smarter and avoid scams.